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Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Next Years Harvest

Over the Easter weekend I got to thinking about stuff, I thought about the folk who say “we must download because we are poor” and here are my thoughts....

It's kind of like the starving hungry people who once the crop has grown they eat all the grain rather than saving some for next years planting. If you illegally file-share, or illegally download, you are eating all of this year's grain, but not putting something back you are not ensuring next years crop. Take, take take, “I need more music” this attitude is short sighted in the extreme, because what happens is without financial renumeration for their work musicians are no longer able to continue, labels are no longer able to invest and stores close their doors. The result will be a pretty poor musical harvest in the years to come. All the musicians I know do not aim to be rich, they do not have the aim of wealth in their minds but like everyone else they need to cover their costs of living, and the costs of producing music. I do not know a single musician at this moment in time that is not slipping further and further into debt due to the theft of the music they make.

So going back to the original “we must download because we are poor” whine that we so often hear, by taking music in an illegal way, by not paying for what you listen to you are in fact enriching your life by creating poverty for those who made the music. Lets not hide behind ill thought out defensive arguments and come clean over this, what motivates a music thief is really greed and selfishness, scream and shout all you like, but in reality you are merely bolstering the belief that you are greedy, selfish, extremely short sighted and driven by your ego to have a bigger collection of music that your mates!

12 comments:

Anonymous
said...

If this downloading continues we end with the final question: "Where has the music gone". But then again illigal sites don't see our love for music as music hence the reason they upload every album they can about our music and yes it's a sarcastic retoric remark/question.

Yes, you are a thief because the owner of that music didn't agree to let you download it for free. What country are you in? Looks like another person from Turkey, boy, I'd hate to be caught stealing under Islamic law.

Good for Trent, but there are 2 things you're missing. Trent can do this because people know who he is, I've seen tons of small bands try this over the years, doesn't work. The other thing your missing is what he is charging for the packaging, insane rates, but if he can pull it off, I salute him. This is Trents choice to do though, not yours or anyone elses.

Oh, and everyone here is a musician, I'm working on my new album right now, I just took a break to check email.

proggo;i buy alot from mindawn already. i see no point sampling from any blog given the listening options afforded to the listener from shawn's service. the pricing is quite fair. my issue is that i wished there was a mindawn for the ultra rare stuff that are on the blogs.

It's the life. There always must be someone who takes care about something that nobody cares. You, and your losing battles against downloading, are simply boring. The people pays too much attention to you, this is the secret.

Geez, what a self-righteous bunch you are. The world has changed, accept it and ADAPT. It's not that hard. Look at Jonathan Coulton; wouldn't be where he is without file sharing, sells all his songs DRM-free cheaply, has many for free download,all of them free to listen. And he makes a good living.

Any band that can amass about a thousand loyal fans can certainly live off their music, if not opulently. If you cannot gain a thousand loyal fans in today's day and age, there are two options; either you're doing it wrong (by refusing to make your music available to spread and make new fans for you), or you're just not good enough.

And, let's face it, you all know the music won't die. Best British Prog act post-87? IQ. They always had side jobs (except maybe Jowitt and Orford). They make music because they love doing it.

Should artists be paid for their work? Of course they should, but a draconian Big Brither-watched internet is not the solution. THe solution is convenience and goodwill.

Adapt to what exactly? What's your business model? Musicians make music, they don't sell merch, they don't organize tours. Do you go to a person that raises cattle and tell them to give you the meat for free but put advertising on the sides of the cow before they are killed to make money that way?